ROME — Pope Francis has called out Israel for what he sees as its “domineering tendency” in Lebanon and Gaza, insisting its response to attacks has been “disproportionate.”
Over the weekend the pontiff returned to Rome from Belgium and aboard the flight was asked whether he thinks Israel “has perhaps gone too far” in its dealings with Lebanon and Gaza, specifically mentioning the force used in the targeted assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary-general of Hezbollah.
“Every day I call the parish in Gaza,” the pope replied. “They are more than 600 people in there between the parish and the school, and they tell me the things that happen, including the cruelties that take place there.”
“The defense must always be proportionate to the attack,” he continued. “When there is something disproportionate, a dominating tendency that goes beyond morality is evident.”
“A country that uses force to do these things – I am talking about any country – to do these things in such a ‘superlative’ way, these are immoral actions,” he added.
Pope Francis, who has asserted that all wars are “unjust” and that “war is in itself a crime against humanity,” told reporters Sunday that nonetheless, certain rules must be respected.
“Even in war there is a morality to be safe-guarded,” he said. “War is immoral, but the rules of war imply some morality. But when this is not respected, as we say in Argentina, there is ‘bad blood.’”
The pope’s words echoed remarks by the Vatican’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, in which he declared last summer that Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza cannot be deemed a “just war.”
“There is just war, the war of defense, but today with the weapons that are available, this concept becomes very difficult,” Cardinal Parolin told journalists in early July.
Asked about the current armed conflict in Gaza, Parolin said: “It’s never a just war, in this sense.”
“A just war can only be spoken of in the context of defense, the case of a war of defense,” he added.
A commission representing Catholic Church leaders in the Holy Land similarly issued a statement denying that Israel’s ongoing offensive in Gaza can be described as a “just war.”
The Justice and Peace Commission of the Holy Land denounced the use of the term “just war” to describe the war in Gaza, insisting that neither Hamas’ attacks nor Israel’s indiscriminate response are a “just war.”
“This theory is being used in a way in which it was never intended: to justify the death of tens of thousands, our friends and our neighbors,” said the Commission, which is led by Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem.
“Neither the attacks by Hamas nor Israel’s devastating war in response satisfy the criteria for ‘just war’ according to Catholic Doctrine,” the Commission stated.
In response, the Israeli embassy to the Holy See issued its own statement condemning the text.
“It should be lamented that a group of people from the Catholic Church has decided to issue a document that, using religious pretext and linguistic stunts, does nothing else than de facto objecting [to] Israel’s right to defend itself from its enemies’ declared intentions to put an end to its existence,” said the July 2 Israeli press release.
Israel’s objective from the beginning of the conflict was “to end Hamas rule in the territory and secure that atrocities like the ones committed on Oct. 7 will not happen again,” the statement said.
The characterization of the conflict as “the war in Gaza” conveniently ignores the “simultaneous attacks against Israel from Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iran,” it said.
A better title for the events of the last nine months would be “The war against Israel’s existence,” it added.
